


1023

by seapigeon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Kid Fic, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, War Veteran Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 11:35:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18409811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: Steve has been blessed (or cursed) with a daughter who's just like him.On a crisp fall day, she befriends a man who sleeps under a park bench.Bucky doesn't say much about his past, but in no time at all, Steve is pretty sure he might be his future.





	1023

**Author's Note:**

  * For [QueenoftheRandomWord42](https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenoftheRandomWord42/gifts).



> This was written for Shrinkyclinks Fest 2019, based on prompt #91 by QueenoftheRandomWord42!
> 
> The prompt was:  
> "May you be blessed with children as crazy as you!" Sarah Rogers once exclaimed when Steve was a child, and now as a single father of small child with the self preservation of a lemming, Steve is beginning to believe that he might be cursed. So when his child wanders away while playing in the park, Steve's heart stopped, until a complete (terrifying and hot) stranger who looks like a hobo dressed in all black and a glove on the left hand, brings the child, the child asking if they "can keep 'im because he lives under the park bench." Up to you what is up with Bucky, but it could be a recently defrosted and escaped Winter Soldier, or a vet that's really down on his luck.
> 
> Thanks to agentcoop and daphneblithe for cheerleading/beta services!
> 
> This was my first venture into kid fic and I had a lot of fun! Hope you all enjoy the twist.

“May you be blessed with children as crazy as you!” Sarah Rogers once exclaimed when Steve was a child.  He sighs and lets his tired bones settle into the bench. He gets it now, he really does. His daughter is a maniac.  

He’s already had to pull her off the rope jungle gym for hanging upside down by nothing but her tiny unicorn-sneaker-clad feet.  That earned him some pouting for the ages and an almighty protest (“But I’m _  Black Widow _ , Daddy!”).  Add “Even Black Widows can break their necks if they fall!” to the list of ridiculous things he never thought he’d say out loud.  He had to threaten to leave the park altogether to get her to agree to no upside down. But as he well knows, that won’t stop her from attempting feats of parkour that have already led to a broken arm and enough stitches that just last month he had to sit through hours of interviews and observation by Child Protective Services.

That led to them signing off with an unofficial diagnosis of ADHD, a list of doctors, and a recommendation that he pad the corners of  _ everything _ .  It wouldn’t do any good to tell them he had been the exact same way as a kid, and had no problem with attention at all.  It was just that all that formidable attention was focused on doing the things people thought he couldn’t, and usually injuring himself or giving someone a heart attack in the process.

Thankfully, Maggie was born completely normal.  Straight spine, no heart or lung problems, in all ways a healthy kid.  Except that she has zero concept of self-preservation.

Steve sighs.  He’s not been paying attention to her for what, three minutes?  Should be enough time for her to get in a fight or decide to try Olympic gymnast level dismounts from the swings.  He drags himself up to check on her.

Except...she isn’t there.  No blonde pigtails, no mint-green jacket, no unicorn sneakers.  He does a lap before he lets himself panic, but no, there’s no Maggie.  She’s gone.

_ This is how it happens, take your eyes off ‘em for two seconds and someone snatches them-- _ oh God,  _ oh God _ \--

“Maggie!   _ Maggie!”  _

Other mothers and fathers look up, hearing the urgency in his voice.  A woman with a kind face touches his elbow.

“What does she look like?  I’ll help you find her.”

They had just rallied a few more parents to fan out over the playground when Steve spots her. He can’t help it; her name comes out of him in a rush.

“ _ Mags! _ ”

She grins and waves from across the park, oblivious to the gut-wrenching panic in his voice.  Her other hand is--

Oh.  Oh, she’s dragging a man toward them, and he’s…

_ Terrifying _ is his first thought.   _ Homeless  _ is the second.  His dark clothes are rumpled and he’s got that too-many-layers-worn-too-long look.  He’s in his early thirties, maybe, with long greasy hair under a beanie and a week’s worth of stubble.  Steve clamps down on every judgmental thing that rises in him. The guy hasn’t hurt her; Maggie is beaming as she pulls him along. Knowing her, she dragged this guy away from whatever he was doing to play a game with her.

Up close, he doesn’t  _ smell  _ homeless, and he’s...well, not bad looking, under all that hair.  But there’s something nervous and haunted in his face. It all clicks when Steve notices how  _ built _ he is, and the glint of dog tags around his neck.  He can’t see the tags - they’re under his shirt - but he knows.

“Maggie, you  _ can’t _ disappear like that,” Steve says, stern.  “I thought someone took you away!”

“I didn’t--” the guy starts with dawning panic, eyes wide.  He tries to pull his hand from Maggie’s, but she holds on; Steve is well acquainted with her alligator-jaw grip when she wants something.

“I know,” Steve says.  “I know. I’m sorry she bothered you.”

“She--”

Maggie interrupts, her enthusiasm undented.  “Daddy, he has a bird! Come look at the bird!”  She grabs his hand. Now she’s holding on to both of them. 

She loves animals.  She’s already saying she wants to be a veterinarian.  A noble profession, as far as Steve is concerned. He takes a deep breath, trying to quell the lingering adrenaline, and catches her gaze.

“Only if it’s okay with…”

“B-Bucky,” the guy stammers out, stiff, awkward, but clearly under Maggie’s spell.  “It’s okay.” 

They follow him back across the park.  His things are on a bench, but Steve doesn’t miss the sleeping bag folded underneath.  He’s definitely homeless.

“Why is she in a box?” Maggie asks, staring at the little starling.

“She got hurt,” Bucky says.  He reaches in, gloved hands gentle, and shows them her twisted wing. “Cat got her, maybe.  Or a hawk.”

“Mr. Bucky, why do you live under the bench?”

“Maggie,” Steve groans, facepalming.  Add understanding of social niceties to the list of Things His Daughter Doesn’t Have, right next to self-preservation.  Why is he even surprised?

“It’s fine,” Bucky shrugs, smiling at her.  And... _ wow _ , he’s gorgeous, a whole different person when he smiles.  “I...used to live in New York, and didn’t expect to come back, but I did.  Just haven’t found a place to stay yet.” He’s trying to sound casual, but Steve hears the strain underneath.  

“There’s a shelter on Lafayette,” Steve says softly, while Maggie is distracted by the bird.

“Yeah,” he replies, the pleasant expression fading.  His voice is so flat, so far retreated that Steve’s heart aches.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he says, “Come to lunch with us.”

Bucky blinks at him for a solid thirty seconds.  Then his cheeks color, and he looks down at the starling when he nods.

  
  


Thank goodness for New York, where no one thinks twice about them bringing a box with a live bird into the diner.  The waitress even brings it some lettuce, although Steve suspects its usual diet is probably bugs and whatever it finds in the trash.

“Maggie,” he says.  “What do birds eat?”

“French fries!” she squeals, hands up.  He laughs, and Bucky does, too. Steve pulls up an animal app geared toward young children on his phone and lets her play with it.

Bucky's still got that soft expression on his face.  It makes Steve ask, “Do you have any children?”

He starts a little, like it's a strange question, and pokes at his soup.  “Oh. No. Just...little sisters, and she reminds me of…”

_ Better times. _

He doesn't say it, but Steve can hear it loud and clear.

  
  


Bucky is  _ great  _ with Maggie.  By the end of lunch, she's deeply attached to him and his bird.  And Steve, though he tries not to be, is invested.

Thing is, he's seen this before.  His best friend Sam was like this when he came back.  Not homeless, but  _ haunted.  _ Not himself.  Steve's own father, too, carried some degree of PTSD from the Gulf War.  It was never discussed, but now, after going through things with Sam, he knows.

He thinks about it when he takes Maggie to the bathroom.  It's...generally not a good idea to invite a stranger into one's home.  Bucky is a complete unknown. And Steve has a daughter to think about. 

“Daddy,” Maggie says, finger up her nose, “isn't Mr. Bucky going to get cold if he sleeps under the bench?”

Steve sighs and washes her hands.  “He might.”

“I don't want him to be cold. Or the birdy.  Can I name her Pasqualina?”

Where she got that name from, he'll never know.  Children are endless vessels of surprise.

“He might already have named her, you'll have to ask.  And I don't want them to be cold, either.” He really means that. Feels it to his toes.

That's why, when they get back to the table, he says, “You can stay with us for a bit, while you look for a place.”

Bucky's face cycles through several expressions, and Steve clearly sees both disbelief and naked fear among them 

“I--I don't have any money,” he admits, guarded.

“Washing dishes is the same as rent, far as I'm concerned,” Steve shrugs.  “And it's not a life of glamour, believe me.” Their apartment is too small, like all apartments in Brooklyn; he and Sharon signed the lease before they knew they were pregnant.  They always thought they'd get somewhere bigger once Maggie was two or three. Life had other plans. 

Steve tries to keep his own face from showing too much.  He’s not sure if he succeeds. Bucky looks like he wants to say yes, but something’s stopping him.

“If nothing else, you can get a hot shower,” Steve offers.

And that, that’s too good to refuse.

  
  


Bucky’s in there for a long time.  Steve doesn’t blame him. He answers some e-mails and calls an avian vet to ask about Pasqualina the bird in the meantime.  As he suspected, starlings do eat bugs, primarily. The irony isn’t lost on him; now he has to go out and  _ spend money  _ on bugs when he knows as well as anyone else living in the city that they’re everywhere for free. 

She can survive on seeds and certain fruit, too.  He lets Maggie put a few slices of apple into her box, and a spaghetti sauce cap full of water.  She’s enthralled by the speckled, glossy bird. It keeps her uncharacteristically quiet, at least for a little while.

“Do you, uh, know where the nearest laundromat is?”

Okay.  Okay, wow, Bucky is extremely attractive, standing there in just a towel with his hair clean and combed and falling in wet waves around his face.  Steve blinks, wrongfooted by the realization. He hasn’t... _ this _ hasn’t happened in a long time.

Bucky shifts on his feet, posture wary.  He doesn’t like the exposure. Steve tries not to look at the scars around his left shoulder.  Hell, he tries not to look anywhere but his eyes.

“If you turn around and walk about three paces, you’ll see it.”

Bucky glances at the stackable machine, then back at Steve.  “You don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

  
  


Bucky stays.

Steve’s no fool; Maggie sleeps in his room, door locked, pepper spray and Sharon’s tazer under the bed in easy reach, and before he turns in he says to Bucky, “Look, I’m probably a dick for saying this, but no drugs, no booze, and if you need something, just say so. If it’s something I can get, I will.  Don’t steal from me.” He smiles crookedly. “Nothing worth stealing here, anyway.” There isn’t, other than the electronics, and the only thing he really cares about there is his already-secured computer.

“You’re not a dick,” Bucky says in a very soft voice.  “Thank you.”

  
  
  


Bucky stays the next night, and the night after that, onward until days turn to weeks and weeks to months, and suddenly it’s March.  Steve’s apartment has literally never been cleaner. 

Bucky’s presence, as well as Pasqualina’s chirping and singing at five in the morning, becomes the new normal. Steve never quite manages to get used to his persistent attraction to Bucky.  It’s not that he’s a man; Steve’s very comfortable with his bisexuality. It’s that he’s the first person that makes him feel like he might want something for himself. It’s been all Maggie, all the time since…

He exhales and tries to focus on work.  Naturally, that’s the day that Maggie chooses to shut her finger in a door, and they’re off to the urgent care. Somehow, it’s been two months since she incurred anything more than a scrape on the knee; that’s some kind of record. He says so to Bucky, and when he gets home from work the next day, there’s a sign on the wall like you’d see at a worksite:  _ 1 Day(s) Accident Free! _

Maggie loves it.  Of course the only way to get his daughter to think before flinging herself headfirst into peril is to make it a game.  No, a  _ competition. _  She gets little rewards for milestones; a lollipop, a dollar, an ice cream sundae,  _ twenty _ whole dollars if she makes it a year.  And he and Bucky pretend to lose at the game every time there’s a papercut or a stubbed toe.

Quite simply, Bucky’s born to be a father, and Maggie adores him.  Steve’s not far behind.

  
  
  
  


It’s late, and Maggie has already been asleep for hours when Bucky comes in from his barback shift.  Steve’s never asked him for rent, but he’s started slipping him money when he has some to spare. Steve puts it all in Maggie’s college fund.

“Don’t you have to go to the office tomorrow?” Bucky asks.

“Unfortunately, yes.  But this client decided to change their color scheme at the last second.”  Steve rubs his eyes and makes a face. “No big deal. Just have to redo  _ everything _ .”

“Shouldn't you get more time, then?”

“You'd think,” Steve mutters.  “I miss being self-employed.”

“You had your own business?”

“Freelance.  We could do that because Sharon--”

Oh.  Oh, he had no intention of going to this place, but it's out now, and he can't take it back.  Steve swallows and forces himself to go on.

“Sharon, my partner, she was a detective and had good benefits.  But now…”

Bucky can connect the dots.  His face crimps.

“Shit, Steve, I'm sorry.”

“S'ok,” he says, blinking back tears, though he's got that ache in his chest and it probably won't go away for a few days.  “I'm sure you were wondering about Maggie's mom.”

“It's not any of my business.  You've never asked me…”

“And I won't, but I'll listen if you want to talk.”

Bucky closes his eyes and breathes.  Then he straightens up and opens his mouth.  For a second, Steve thinks it's actually going to happen.  Bucky's going to talk to him.

The moment stretches.  And then Bucky closes his mouth and shakes his head.

“I...it's not that I don't trust you…”

Steve just nods to show he's not bothered and goes back to his work. Like Bucky said, it's not his business, and he fully understands the desire to start over, to be someone that nobody knows.  That had been college for him, after a miserable high school existence.

He falls into the project revision easily.  He's absorbed in the detail work when Bucky sets a mug of coffee down next to him.  It smells heavenly, and he'll need it; there are at least two more hours of work here. 

“I'll get Maggie ready in the morning and drop her off so you can sleep,” he says softly.  His fingers trail over Steve's back and right shoulder before he retreats.

“Thank you,” Steve whispers to the now-empty room, awash in goosebumps.

  
  


Sometime in the early summer, Pasqualina heals enough to fly away.  They’d taken to leaving her box in the old window AC cage on nice days.  The grate is small enough that predators can’t get in, but Pasqualina and her light bird bones had no issue getting out when she was ready.

Maggie is heartbroken.  She sobs the unfettered tears of a child experiencing loss for the first time.  She’s too young to remember Sharon as anything more than an obscurity, and maybe that’s a blessing, no matter how much it hurts Steve to think about how she never got to know her mother.

He holds her and rocks her - that’s already rare, because she seems to think she has to face the world on her own just like he always did - and when Bucky gets home and realizes what’s happened, he just folds himself into the embrace.  Eventually, she quiets, sheltered between their heartbeats.

It doesn’t escape Steve that Bucky stays there longer than he has to, arms around the both of them.

  
  


“What should I do?” Steve asks later, exhausted.  “Get her a new bird?”

“I don’t think so,” Bucky muses, fiddling with the label around neck of his beer bottle.  “It won’t be Pasqualina.”

Steve nods.  Replacement doesn’t fix loss, and some things are irreplaceable.

In the silence, he can’t stop his eyes from roaming over Bucky.  It felt so nice, earlier, to not be alone. To be with someone who cares as much about his daughter as he does.

Bucky catches him looking.  Steve is too wrung out to pretend he’s not.  His heart’s a little flayed from having to watch his daughter grieve, and everything else it stirred up, latent feelings for Bucky included. The chair scrapes as Bucky stands and closes the distance between them.  

Time turns viscous; Steve will remember the light, the music playing low in the background, the hoppy smell of the beer on Bucky’s breath.  His own impossible, aching hope. Slowly, slowly, Bucky leans in, cheeks flushed, his hand brushing Steve’s where it rests on the counter. Telegraphing. Giving Steve time to move away, to stop them from going down this path.

He doesn’t. 

  
  


It’s all too fast, too much, but that seems to be the way of things.  He could die with Bucky’s tongue in his mouth, be reborn in the heat of his skin.  They splay onto the couch, naked, gasping, hands and lips everywhere. 

“ _ Please _ ,” Bucky whispers, fingers digging into the flesh of Steve’s ass, pressing him close between his thighs.

And he shouldn’t, he knows he shouldn’t, not without the both of them getting tested first.  But tonight, need outweighs sense. 

  
  
  


He comes too fast - an inevitability - but usually he can keep going for a bit, stay hard enough to prolong his partner’s pleasure.  He needs no incentive. Bucky’s unraveling with every thrust, and Steve’s never seen something so beautiful. He whimpers, writhes, tugging at his cock, begging in a low voice,  _ don’t stop, Steve, don’t stop, right there, yes! _

When Bucky comes, Steve’s endorphin-soused brain limns him in gold, molten veins pumping sweet lightning under his skin.  He’s bright, scalding, and Steve groans from the oversensitivity bombarding his senses as Bucky clenches tight around him.  It’s so fucking _good._

He’s mindless and feverish with pleasure for a long time, until the cool cloth Bucky uses to wipe them down breaks it.

  
  
  


The next day Steve works from home, so they go to the clinic to get tested.  They’re both clean, thank God. That’s Steve’s only regret - the risk he took.  Not his smartest decision.

“Did that a little backwards, didn’t we,” Bucky says, sheepish.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Bucky chews his bottom lip, then looks at his watch.  “What time is your conference call?

“11:15.”  Thirty-two minutes from now.

“Mm,” he hums, smiling.  “Just enough time to show you exactly how sorry I am.”

  
  
  


That weekend Steve feels a sensation of weightlessness that he hasn’t experienced in a long time.  Everything feels easy. While Maggie is at a playdate he pulls out his paints and Bucky practically creates himself.  He hasn’t been able to get that image out of his head, Bucky at the moment of orgasm, resplendent, skin gilded like the veins of a leaf.  Sometimes he’s very thankful for his artist’s brain.

  
  
  


It’s all...astoundingly good.  Summer passes, fall creeps in. Bucky has met his friends. They’re talking about moving to a bigger place in the new year.  Looking into Bucky legally adopting Maggie. They’re a family now.

He’s browsing apartment listings when Bucky calls out for him.

“Steve?”  

There’s an alert in Bucky’s voice, one he only hears when Maggie’s about to do something that endangers her injury-free streak.  He leaps to his feet. When he gets to the bedroom, though, there’s only Bucky. The painting is in his hands.

“What--what is this?” he asks.  He looks spooked, even a little horrified.

Steve is completely unprepared for Bucky’s negative reaction.  Bucky’s always been supportive of his art. But maybe this went too far?  

“Do you hate it?”

Bucky ignores the question.  “Why do I look like that?” He gestures at the spiderwebs of gold paint, illumination from beneath the skin.

“Oh.  That’s, uh, orgasm vision?  My brain just going haywire at the moment of…”

Slowly, the tension bleeds out of Bucky.  Not entirely, though. He’s still staring at the painting with too much intensity. 

“It’s just how you imagined me,” he says, tone careful.  

“Yeah.”  Steve smiles, trying to put him at ease.  He knows Bucky has times where he struggles with his appearance, especially the scars on his shoulder and arm.  Maybe seeing himself rendered in acrylic in such a personal moment is a bit much. “It’d be pretty wild if you actually glowed. I’d still love you, though.”

“Magnanimous as always,” Bucky murmurs.

An hour later, it’s forgotten.

  
  


The next week, Steve is on the couch scrolling aimlessly through social media when stories about a bombing begin to take over his feed.   It’s that Mandarin son of a bitch again. This time they’ve hit the Chinese Theater in Hollywood, and there are casualties.

Worry gnaws in his gut. This Mandarin guy seems to want to watch the world burn.  Steve’s mind starts mapping the infinite ways in which a terrorist group could attack New York City and he has to dig his knuckles into his eyes.  That’s what they want. They want people to live in fear.

Thing is, fear is inevitable when you have a child to protect, and no idea if you’ll actually be able to if the worst happens.

He checks on Maggie. Stares at her face while she sleeps.  She’s starting to look more like Sharon, especially in the nose, and she’s always had her lips.  Sometimes he still can’t believe he helped create something so perfect.

He goes back the couch and starts putting together an emergency plan.  If something happens, they need to be ready. He should have done this ages ago.  Of course, in the earliest days of single fatherhood to a reckless toddler, every day felt like an emergency. This is quite the dose of perspective.

Bucky comes in from work around two-thirty. He glances over Steve’s shoulder and plants a gentle kiss on his temple. The news is still on, and all of a sudden, before he straightens up, Bucky freezes.

“What?” Steve says. He looks back and forth between Bucky and the television.  They’re talking about the suicide bomber, who they’ve identified as Jack Taggart, disaffected veteran.

Oh, shit. The way Bucky’s staring...

“Bucky, did you know him?”

“Yeah,” he says raggedly.  “I did.”

  
  


Bucky doesn’t sleep, and he’s weird and distant and jumpy.  It’s been a long time since Steve saw him like this. He attributes it to the PTSD.  He still doesn’t know much about Bucky’s time in the military, but he does know it fucked with his head.  It can’t be easy, seeing a former buddy - maybe someone with the same memories, the same problems - end up like this.

He does his best to comfort him.

“There,” Steve says, when the news plays Tony Stark’s interview over and over.  “They pissed off Iron Man. They’re as good as done.” He doesn’t exactly love Stark; he seems like kind of a pompous asshole.  But at the end of the day, his heart is in the right place, and Steve would bet on him in most any fight.

“Yeah,” Bucky replies, robotic. But he seems to relax a fraction.

  
  


Until that night, when they see Stark’s Malibu home go down in flames.  Steve blinks at the screen in disbelief. It’s not like the guy didn’t  _ invite it _ , but…

But superheroes aren’t supposed to die.

Bucky paces.  Steve doesn’t know what to do.

“I need to...get some air,” Bucky says.

“Okay.  I love you.”

Bucky stops mid-motion as he’s pulling on his jacket.  He turns back to Steve and kisses him, hard.

“I love you, too.”

Then he’s out the door. 

  
  
  


Bucky doesn’t come back.   Not that night or the one after.  He doesn’t answer his phone. The police find it in a trash can along the bike path next to the Belt Parkway.  That’s only after Steve calls them every hour, on the hour, to file repeated missing persons reports.

_ He has PTSD, this thing with the Mandarin has him all out of sorts, he was fine until now, what if he… _

But the more he talks to the police, the more he realizes how stupid he is.

“So you just...invited this homeless guy to live with you?” they ask.

“He’s your boyfriend, but you don’t know anything about him?” they prod, judgment filling the room.

And the kicker, when they finally do a background check, is this: James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, US Army Sergeant, Black Ops sniper, injured in the line of duty and subsequently honorably discharged, is missing an arm.

Oh, God, he’s so stupid.

“Looks like he stole this poor slob’s identity,” the cop shrugs.  “We’ll talk to the feds, send someone to the real Barnes’s last known address to do a wellness check.  In the meantime, if this guy has any contact with you, you should call us right away.”

“No problem,” Steve whispers on the verge of tears.  There had been something worth stealing, after all, and it was his heart.

  
  
  


Maggie has been acting out since Bucky disappeared.  Steve’s been doing the opposite; to say he’s been existing is kind.  He’s numb. Useless.

“Mr. Rogers, are you listening?  Your daughter punched another child today, and he needed stitches. I should expel her.”

He bites down on a sharp retort.  It won’t help. 

“I’m sorry.  We’re...going through a difficult family time right now,” he chokes out.  He must look every bit as awful as he sounds.

The director of the preschool reaches out to touch his elbow.  “I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic, but you have to get her behavior under control.”

“I know.”

“I can recommend a good counselor, if you’d like.”

“Yes,” he says softly.  “Thank you.”

  
  


“Daddy,” Maggie says in a tiny voice that night.  “You’re not going to leave me, are you?”

Steve looks up, emotions scraping him raw inside.  He could fucking scream.

“Never,” he breathes, wrapping his arms around Maggie.  “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, Mags.”

  
  


Iron Man’s not dead, after all, and the Mandarin is done for.  Kind of funny, how he ended up being nothing more than a figurehead.  A washed up drunk stage actor. It’s all been an exercise in deception and manipulation.  What a terrifying world they live in.

“And now, an exclusive breaking story. Authorities are now able to reveal the source that provided information vital to tracking down and dismantling Aldrich Killian’s Extremis program, which targeted the disabled and traumatized military veterans, recruiting them for illegal and often inhumane experimentation.”

Steve sets his computer down, frowning.  It’s a good thing he does, because a second later, Bucky’s face is on the screen.  He’s young, clean shaven, in full military fatigues, but there’s no question that it’s him.  Steve gapes as the voiceover starts.

_ “James Buchanan Barnes was a twenty-seven year old Army sergeant when he lost his left arm in an ambush in Iraq.  After thirty-nine days as a prisoner of war, Barnes and several others were rescued, but the damage was done. He was traumatized, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and in constant pain.  He spent the next year in a deep spiral of depression and says he contemplated suicide many times.” _

And there’s Bucky, his Bucky, with the stubble and long hair, looking uncomfortable but determined.

“I couldn’t see any way out,” he says.  His voice. God. “I felt like I couldn’t contribute, and the pain never went away.  It just wore me down.”

_ “Barnes had just purchased a gun when he was approached by an old friend.  He’d served with Jack Taggart before. Taggart told him about a top-secret program that was looking for test subjects.  Its name? Extremis.” _

“The way he explained it to me, AIM was trying to do great work.  To cure cancer, fix genetic defects. They had promising results in animals, but couldn’t get approval for human test subjects.  But he said he’d seen its results with his own eyes. People regrew limbs, recovered from birth defects, and healed from brain injuries.  I was ready to die anyway. What did I have to lose?”

_ “So Barnes went with Taggart and consented to acting as a test subject for Extremis.” _

It flashes back to Bucky, who’s wringing his hands together.  “There were red flags, sure. You weren’t allowed to leave. Some people that were there when I started, I never saw again.  I just thought they were done, or had dropped out. I never imagined…”

Faces start to flash across the screen.   _ “In total, one hundred and two people signed on to Extremis, lured by promises of recovery, limb regrowth, and the ability to give back.  Only fourteen survived. James Barnes was one of them.” _

“I thought I knew what pain was.”  He shakes his head. “I didn’t. But I made it through where a lot of other people didn’t, and I had my arm back.  It actually...grew right in, in the space of two days.” He holds his left hand up to the camera. “I know it sounds crazy, but all my medical records are pretty clear that I didn’t have an arm.”

Steve makes a little hurt noise in his throat when they show pictures of him post-rescue, dead-eyed, thin, left arm raggedly amputated at the shoulder. Right where his scars are.  The ones Steve had kissed so many times.

“There were side effects.  Some people got addicted, and for others, the formula would raise the body temperature too fast, build up all this heat and potential energy.  If they couldn’t control it...” His jaw goes tight and he looks away.

_ “Sixty-two test subjects violently exploded within 48 hours of injection.  Twenty-six others suffered the same fate in a delayed fashion, detonating when subjected to extreme stress or upon overdose.” _

“It wasn’t enough to just survive injection.  They tested us.” Bucky closes his eyes. “Some of it was worse than actual torture.  I was the only one who’d been through that before. They said it made me strong. I could control it because I knew how to cope.  Pretty laughable, because all I did was dissociate, repeating my serial number over and over like I did in Iraq. I wouldn’t call that coping.”

Steve feels like he’s been doused with a bucket of ice water. Sometimes, in his sleep, Bucky would mutter numbers…

_ 3 2 5 5... _

_ “It was around that time that Barnes realized he had to escape.”  _

No fucking kidding.

Bucky’s outright fidgeting now.  “They called me the Winter Soldier, because I could keep cool better than anyone else. Savin and Brandt started asking me about my black ops training, and I realized this wasn’t all about curing cancer.  I...do think Killian started out that way, wanting to make the world better, but somewhere along the way he went off the rails. I did it because I wanted to help people. Not because I wanted to go back to being a soldier, especially not for some nutcase’s agenda.  I had to get out.” 

It all falls into place.  He did get out, and he came to New York…

Steve has never been more relieved and more infuriated in his life.

  
  
  


The next day, he’s there. He shows up outside Maggie’s preschool.  Maggie sees him before Steve, so he can’t stop her from running across the playground and leaping into his arms.  Nor can he scream the things he wants to,  _ how could you, how dare you, you don’t get to just walk back into our lives like nothing happened. _

He won’t.  He won’t, because Maggie is overjoyed, and he'll never jeopardize her happiness.

Bucky turns to him, and his face falls immediately. They both know Steve has a temper and isn’t afraid to yell, but he’s silent as the grave. 

“I was afraid,” Bucky says.  “Of what they’d do to you if they figured out...if you had information. And the feds wouldn’t let me talk to anyone once I turned myself in.”

Steve just stares, white and rigid with fury, until Bucky sets Maggie down and walks away with tears in his eyes.

  
  
  


He was brave enough, at least, to leave his new phone number in Maggie’s jacket pocket.  When Maggie asks for him for approximately the 974th time, Steve caves and sends him a text.

_ Maggie wants to see you. _

He responds immediately.

_ I’m staying at Stark Tower.  I can come to you, or I can get you clearance to come here. _

  
  


He’s a little taken aback, because when they get there, Bucky is missing his arm.  He shrugs, left shoulder elevating nothing.

“Tony figured out a way to reverse it.  Kinda had to. Killian injected Ms. Potts.”

Steve raises an eyebrow. The poised Ms. Potts, Stark Industries CEO, must be pretty badass if she survived Extremis.

“How is she?”

“Doing well. Pissed at Tony.”

“Imagine that,” Steve replies, clipped.

Bucky sighs.  “Steve…”

Steve cuts him off.  “You gonna be staying here for a while?”

“Yeah.  I guess.”

“Okay.  Maggie can visit you on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

A fragile smile breaks out over his face.  “Okay. Thank you.”

  
  


It’s been about a month.  He’s taken Maggie to Stark Tower every Tuesday and Thursday.  Sometimes he can tolerate staying, and sometimes he can’t. Bucky doesn’t push him, but Steve has caught him staring on several occasions.

Steve has now made the acquaintance of Ms. Potts, and even Tony Stark, briefly.  She’s lovely, and he’s nice enough, if distractible and sort of unbearably smug. He supposes he’s allowed. 

Today, Bucky’s wearing a Stark-designed prototype prosthetic.  It’s made of jointed metal and moves with faint clinks and hums.  Steve hates it immediately. It bothers him so much that after a while he has to look up from his coffee and bite out, “I thought you didn’t want to be a soldier anymore.”

“What?” Bucky says, looking up from Maggie’s coloring pages.

“You said it in that interview.  You didn’t want to be a soldier.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why are you letting Stark graft a weapon onto your body?”

Bucky looks at the prosthetic, startled.  “It’s…”

“It’s a weapon.”  __

The realization sinks in, and Bucky wilts.

  
  
  


“Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?” he asks, pausing his hair braiding.  He has to braid Maggie’s hair after washing it, or it turns into an actual rat’s nest by morning.

“When are you going to forgive Bucky?” 

The question, coming from an almost-five year old, catches him off guard.  He has had a talk or two with her about forgiveness, though he never really expected it to stick. He breathes for a minute, and then goes back to braiding.

“I’m trying, Maggie.  I’m trying.”

  
  


And he  _ is. _  It’s so easy for kids; Maggie doesn’t understand.  She doesn’t know how people have been leaving him his entire life.  His father, his mother, Sharon...and Bucky.

He’d left without a word.  Just...gone. Steve knows why; objectively it all makes sense, and he knows it couldn’t have been easy on Bucky, either.  But he can’t erase the hurt, nor the debilitating fear that he’ll put his heart on the line only to have it happen again.

He definitely can’t erase that awful week where he thought he’d exposed his daughter and  _ himself _ to a crazy identity thief who might have murdered a decorated veteran.  It still makes him nauseous.

Is there a way to start over?  He doesn’t know.

Is it fair to punish Bucky for the mess, regardless?  Probably not. Steve’s the one who didn’t ask, who didn’t demand answers; maybe if he had, Bucky would have told him.  There’s no way to know. Nor is there any way to change it.

One thing he does know is that Maggie loves Bucky.  Deep down, under all the hurt, he does, too. But love isn’t much without trust.

  
  
  


He takes a breath and sends a text.

_ I want to talk. _

  
  
  


Bucky’s  _ vibrating  _ with hope.  It’s a lot. Steve focuses on his coffee or else he won’t be able to get through the things he wants to say.

“I’m sorry I’ve been…difficult,” he starts.  “And I’m sorry those things happened to you. You didn’t deserve it.”

Bucky shrugs, barely able to make eye contact.  It hasn’t escaped Steve’s notice that he’s wearing a different prosthetic, one that looks like a regular arm and not a missile.

“I really am glad that you’re okay. I was so relieved when I saw you on the news. The first couple days I thought maybe you were in a bad place and might’ve killed yourself, you know?  I was really scared. And then I went to the police to file a missing persons report, and...”

“And it got worse.”

“Yeah,” Steve says.  “A lot worse.”

“I wanted to tell you.  But I didn’t think anyone would believe me, and I was afraid.  You and Maggie mean so much to me…I didn’t want to endanger you.” 

It’s hard to ignore the twist of warmth in his belly.  Protection is all well and good, but his logic is flawed.

“You endangered us the whole time.  What if you’d lost control, exploded like the others?”  He hadn’t hallucinated that day, the first time they made love, or any time afterward.  Bucky really  _ had _ been glowing.  Molten. That was why he’d reacted so badly to the painting.  He didn’t even know he was losing control, and there it was, right in front of him.

“I know, and you can’t even imagine how sorry I am,” Bucky says, hands clenching.  “I thought I had mastered it. If...if I could get through the torture…” he chuckles humorlessly.  “But I guess it  _ is _ possible to explode from happiness.”

It’s like being punched in the gut when he says that.  Bucky isn’t--he didn’t set out to hurt them. He’s never wanted to hurt anyone.

“Buck, I need you to understand something,” Steve says, voice shaking.  “You’re not the first person who’s left me.”

The gut-punch is reciprocated, if Bucky’s expression is anything to go by.  He doesn’t know the whole of it - his dad at ten, his mom at eighteen, Sharon at twenty-eight, just when he was starting to rebuild a family for himself, and half a dozen friends and exes in between -  but he understands enough. Bucky looks like he wants to cry. 

“But I know you did it for a good reason,” Steve continues.  “And you came back.” He sniffles, resigned to crying in public.  “No one else has managed that.”

Bucky half laughs, half sobs, reaching for his hands.  “I’m so sorry, Steve. I love you. Please give me another chance.”

Steve breathes, hovering on the precipice.   _ Can I do this again? Can I risk it?   _ He looks at Bucky, remembers that feeling of weightlessness, and the way he cares for Maggie.

_ Yes. _

“You’re gonna have to be patient with me,” he says, gruff.

Bucky lights up and lunges across the table, lifting him out of his seat, spinning him around like it’s some kind of climactic rom-com scene.  Steve laughs and cries at the same time, clamping his legs around Bucky’s waist so he doesn’t go flying.

“Stop, stop!” he gasps, feeling a thousand times lighter than when he walked in.  “They’re going to ban us for making a scene.”

“No we’re not!” shouts one of the baristas.

Three college students near the window are chanting, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” 

Steve obliges.  It’s tentative, gentle, but familiar, and oh, how he’s missed him.

  
  


“How do I look?”  Bucky smooths nervous hands down the front of his suit.

“Like a million bucks,” Steve says, adjusting his tie.

“Really?”

“I am the authority on Bucks, you know.”

Bucky snorts.  “And Dad jokes.”

“You can help me out anytime you want.”  He smirks and turns his head to shout, “Mags, you need any help?”

“I can’t get my shoe buckled, stupid thing!” she shouts back.  More and more she  _ sounds _ like Sharon, especially when she’s annoyed.  It used to hurt, but now it just makes Steve smile.

“I’ll be right there.”

“No, no, your meeting starts in fifteen minutes!” Bucky refutes.  “I got this. Get to work.”

He kisses Bucky on the lips, slow, sensual, and they almost forget themselves until Maggie hollers, “Daaaaad, come on!”  They laugh, sharing one more kiss before Bucky goes.

Steve’s back to freelancing, and his father-daughter dance attendance was curtailed by the treachery of timezones, but it’s okay.  Maggie has two fathers.

“Steve,” Bucky warns, when he’s on picture number twenty five.  “Steve, your meeting is in two minutes and your daughter is deeply embarrassed.”

“Not as embarrassed as she’ll be when she sees your dance moves.”

“They’re better than yours.”

“Oh my  _ God _ ,” ten-year-old Maggie Rogers says.  “You’re both embarrassing.”

He can’t stop smiling.  “Have fun.”

The meeting goes well, and he’s still smiling when he checks his phone to find a few pictures from Bucky. They’re having a good time.  He feels so at peace in that moment; he wishes he could bottle it.

His eyes drift to the sign Bucky bought so long ago.  It says  _ 1,022 Day(s) Accident Free! _  They had wordlessly reset it to zero when Bucky moved back in five years ago.  Would’ve been more, except that Maggie broke her toe kicking a bully square in the ass.  He’s not too upset about that.

Steve doesn’t know what the next 1,022 days will bring.  There was a time when that would have filled him with anxiety.  But now, after a lot of ups and downs and a small fortune in therapy, he feels only the thrill of possibility.  Whatever it is, they’ll get through it together.

The clock turns over to midnight, and he changes the sign to 1,023.


End file.
